Objectives: To conduct a controlled research intervention project to enhance cognitive real-life interpersonal problem-solving skills and subsequent behavioral adjustment of "inner city" preschool youngsters, through a program designed for use by mothers to use with their own children. Implications are that such training could help mothers become mental health agents in primary prevention and early intervention. Procedures: The first year concentrated on 1) learning about how a mother's (N equals 94) interpersonal congnitive problem-solving skills, and how her methods of handling actual interpersonal problem situations with her child relate to the child's problem-solving skills and 2) piloting a program to train mothers (N equals 20) to teach their children real-life problem-solving thinking skills. Analyses will reveal information as to specific content needed for training mothers and a preliminary assessment of the programs' effects upon the childrens' interpersonal problem-solving thinking skills. The second year will entail a full-scale intervention program. Pre-post analyses will reveal the real-life problem-solving thinking skills and behavioral adjustment at home and at school of children trained by their mothers as compared to children matched on the dependent variables but whose mothers were not given intervention training.